2000 April - More than eight million
Ethiopians face starvation after three successive years of poor rain
and failed harvests.

2000 May - Ethiopia captures the strategic
Eritrean town of Barentu.

2000 June - Ethiopia and Eritrea sign a
cease-fire agreement which provides for a United Nations observer
force to monitor the cease-fire and supervise the withdrawal of
Ethiopian troops from Eritrean territory.

2000 December - Ethiopia and Eritrea sign a
peace agreement in Algeria, formally ending two years of conflict. The
agreement establishes commissions to delineate the disputed border and
provides for the exchange of prisoners and the return of displaced
people.

2001 24 February - Ethiopia announces it has
completed its troop withdrawal from Eritrea in accordance with a
United Nations-sponsored agreement to end the border war.

2001 March - Meles Zenawi says he has
thwarted an attempt to cause political upheaval by a dissident group
in the dominant Tigre People's Liberation Front.

2001 April - Thousands of demonstrators
clash with police in Addis Ababa in protest against police brutality
and in support of calls for political and academic freedom.